The common wisdom offered two possible outcomes in the race for the Republican nomination. In one scenario, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was to clean up early, and the momentum from early state victories was to carry him to a strong enough February 5 performance to stop former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in his tracks.
The other possible outcome was the vindication of Giuliani’s “late-state” strategy. Despite losing in the early states, Giuliani was to make a strong stand in Florida on Jan. 29, then win most of the 22 state contests that are held on (or through) Feb. 5. This was supposed to make him the runaway leader, giving him the nomination.
It seemed reasonable enough a month ago, but recent events throw doubt upon both scenarios. Not only are both frontrunners in trouble, but there is also the matter of the extremely complicated, state-by-state process of selecting delegates — a process whose successful, early conclusion decreases in likelihood as the number of apparently viable candidates increases and the frontrunners’ leads decrease. The rules for awarding delegates, which have mattered little in recent presidential primaries with clear winners, are so complex as to boggle the mind.
The February 5 Super-Duper Tuesday is something completely new — it could have all kinds of unintended consequences. In the past, the large number of late delegates has allowed voters to unite around a single candidate late in the game, after he proved himself early on. This will not be so easy this time, as Republican voters will choose 1,102 of roughly 2,500 delegates on a single day, not knowing what their fellow Republicans will do in other states. Given this dynamic, and the lack of a clear frontrunner at the moment, the odds of a brokered convention have never been better.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has surged ahead in early states, but for now he lacks an organization to win in many states after Feb. 5. Even if he fades in the next month, his supporters are sufficiently dedicated to him that he will not disappear entirely.
Romney’s support is much less stout, and he has slipped in Iowa. Giuliani is fading in every national poll and in some key states. He has sunk each day for a week under the weight of the so-called “shag-fund” story and in some polls he is no longer even the national frontrunner. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) stubbornly refuses to disappear, hanging on to enough support in New Hampshire that he could produce a surprise one month from now and suddenly revive. Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R., Tenn.) is not dead yet — he could be the beneficiary of a Huckabee implosion. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R., Tex.) is relevant, considering his apparent lead in cash.
Republicans have been faced with a late leveling of the field — an overabundance of viable candidates that has resulted from persistent dissatisfaction with the purported frontrunners. As unlikely as it may seem, it could lead them into every political junkie’s nirvana: a political convention whose proceedings actually matter.
Might No One Win?
For a clean nominating process, one candidate must enter next year’s convention in Minneapolis with half the delegates — that is 1,191 delegates, or 1,259 if sanctions against several states are lifted. This was easy in 2000, when there were only two viable candidates. It was relatively easy in 1996, when there was a clear establishment favorite. Moreover, Bob Dole’s decisive seven-state sweep on Super Tuesday effectively gave him control of the late contests, where many delegates were still at stake.
This time, however, there are too many candidates, and no establishment favorite. And after Super Tuesday, there will not be nearly as many delegates to be won. Therefore, a clean process and a convention full of merely symbolic speeches is far from guaranteed. Giuliani is still the man to beat, but his odds would be long in a brokered Republican convention. The burden rests on Rudy to prevent one — to get as close to 50 percent of the delegates as possible. And the very difficulty of this task gives other candidates an incentive to stick around and fight in late contests, further complicating everything.
It is difficult to do real justice to this topic.
This website is extremely helpful, and calls to some experienced Republican consultants not aligned with any presidential candidate are a good start — and both contributed to this guess-estimating article. Additional calls to all 50 secretaries of state for legal opinions might change things, so there may be a few things wrong here — this is not an exact science, and this piece doesn’t even consider the issue of delegates that are “committed” or “uncommitted.” Still, we can construct a plausible scenario — a scenario that is reasonably favorable to Giuliani — and work out the delegate math to see what sort of margin of error he has.
We must bear the chronology in mind, but we must also start with what appears most certain. First, there are some delegates that Giuliani simply will
not win. A few of the state parties use a pure “winner take all” system in selecting delegates. Utah is one of them — on Feb. 5, it will award all of its 36 delegates to Romney. It also appears likely (at one point it did not) that Arizona will award its 53 delegates to McCain. Massachusetts will probably give all 40 delegates to Romney if he remains in the race for that primary in early March.
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